Quarq has released details of Michal Kwiatkowski’s World Championship winning ride – tracked by his power meter– which show the strength and stamina needed to take on the planet’s best road riders and win. Here are some of the highlights.
310W– Kwiatkowski’s normalised power, an averaged power figure taking into account the peaks and troughs of climbing and descending, throughout the 253km ride.
403W– Based on his Intensity Factor of 0.77 for the race the Polish rider’s functional threshold power (FTP) – the max power sustainable for an hour – is about 403 watts.
148 bpm– Despite riding at a normalised power of 306 watts for the first six hours, 20 minutes of the race, Kwiatkowski’s heart rate averaged only 148 beats per minute.
436W– The power Kwiatkowski averaged for the 34 seconds – 6.43 watts for each of his 68kg – as he began his race-winning move to bridge to the leaders, including a burst up to 928 watts and a drop in cadence to 83 rpm.
501W– Kwiatkowski’s NP for his three-minute attack off the front of the breakaway group, pushing his heart rate up to 179BPM and peaking at 706 watts. His peak one-minute power during the race was 552 watts.
59.9 km/h– Kwiatkowski’s average speed over the final 1.7km of racing, compared to 38.8km/h as an average for the whole race. He put out an average of 415 watts at a cadence of 102 rpm.
Quarq Power Coach, Gord Fraser, said of Kwiatkowski’s ride: “Cycling has always been an unpredictable sport. Though at times, tactics and audacity can take a back seat to conservative racing lately. While these numbers paint what it takes statistically to net one of the biggest prizes in the sport – the coveted rainbow jersey, it's refreshing to see within this Quarq file that this victory was accomplished by a willingness to go all or nothing with a late breakaway.”
Check out the full Quarq file on Training Peaks here.
